Earlier this month I published a few charts featuring known FW bots distribution between militias. I didn’t have time to properly make a report and explain the data shown until recently. Now I’m happy to present you the enhanced version of the same data - YC 123 FW Bots Report (PDF File). This document features charts of which systems and warzones these bots were found in, how often, which side they belonged to within time of their existence, and some “Top-10” charts of the bot hunters.
I hope you will enjoy reading this report as much as i preparing it.
P.S. In addition to that I also analysed the same data and prepared extra material for fans of conspiracy theory, reviewing possibility of the bots actually working in favor of any militia, however, again, due to lack of time in the end of the year i haven’t managed to make a comprehensive report on this and i’m not sure that such information is really wanted. I can’t promise it now, but if there is more spare time in foreseeable future, i’ll make another document featuring this information.
Interesting presentation. So your tracking would show that for the majority of 2021, only 9 bots were active across all of FW? Or are you checking for Coercer bots only and there may have been others?
Also in sections 19 & 21 you appear to have mislabeled the GalCal Warzone Bots distribution with Amarr/Min headings.
The totals for ISK lost seem fairly high given that the cheapest builds could be used. Not saying it’s wrong just higher than I expected. 2.5 - 3 million ISK per kill when Coercers can be had for under a million. Are those laser/heat sink/rig fits they’re using just to make it less obvious they’re a bot?
I’d be curious to compare how much they may have earned during this activity vs. their expenses. It doesn’t seem like it would be profitable enough to be worth the trouble. Which may explain why there were only 9 if that were the case.
I don’t exclude the possibility that there are other bots, not all of them are that obvious. I can say only for the coercer-bots. Don’t be surprised by the number - 9 people who don’t need to sleep, work and eat can do a lot. We often have less people in standing militia fleet, FW is not that crowded nowadays.
This is AmarrMil / MinMil bots distributed in GalCal warzone. The bots were switching between only two militias, but were roaming different warzones.
There is actually tendency of making the fit cheaper in the second half of their activity. Very first fits were about 3.4 mils average - Coercer | Ghirvim Qirna | Killmail | zKillboard . Somewhat later all coercers got one CCC replaced by processor overclocking unit, which effectively reduced their price by about 1 million - Coercer | Shindasb Uhad | Killmail | zKillboard . I think the bots owner didn’t bother himself much about remaining unnoticed, but he had to come up with some fit that doesn’t require a lot of skills, ammo and can remain stable to avoid unexpected scenarios that may break the bots. The bots were running only small and medium sites, so it still needs reasonably high dps to cover mediums. I think provided these limitations there were not that much of choice how to fit them.
So they only use coercer bots? I always thought that the Catalysts were bots too. Well, occasionally they started speaking Russian to me, but I still thought the majority of them were non-human.
If you don’t know you probably don’t fly around in lowsec enough. You can push one out of a small, then bounce back to the acceleration gate, and they’ll warp to the gate at zero every time because their DSCAN is specifically set to 0,1 AU 360 angle. Once pointed they make no effort to fight back or disengage. All their character profile pictures are the automatically generated ones. They have not got a single kill for the most part.
IDK, that’s how my farming alts behaved. If I got caught, it’s because I wasn’t even paying attention to the client long enough to avoid getting jumped, so I never got a chance to respond. Otherwise yea, I’d just stubbornly warp away and back until the ElItEpVpEr moved on. vOv
Very predictable behavior involving what plexs they go to, how they go to them, and what they do if there is someone already there
when killed they respawn, rearm into the exact same totally expendable ship then go out from the same route. We have had people camp at their entrance for a night.
This continues non-stop for weeks and months with the same bots.
Disclaimer,
As always when it comes to CCP and botting take this with a huge pinch of salt, they lie & strawman like many addicts in denial.
To this date,
Zero of the industry standard effective measures against botting/automation have been implemented. Not even a basic ID or credit/visa check, or CAPTCHA for new accounts despite years of this games decline owing to botting.
Outrageous claims of a hard stance & zero tolerance on botting despite still to this date only offering pitiful time bans as low as 3 days for botters, while disgustingly and hypocritically still offering all account perma bans to RMT dudes for the most casual or in house activities.
Now do the markets, which is currently dominated by bots just look at the decline of markets. You can’t list in either dodix, rens, hek, jita or amarr without being out bid 15 mins to 30 mins later with tiny stacks which auto relist after depletion, 23/7.
Time to limit market pulls to 1x per day during downtime. Automation has driven near all players out of this game and CCP has done zero to iota to stop it, enjoy the subscription hemorage, I do hope 200 botters pay the bills at CCP to keep you lot employed.
This from a company whose senior devs discuss cyrpto, NFT & hard currency. Your game is now a cesspit and your moderation of it a joke, its in game digital currency worth less than bit it takes to store. The very idea of CCP being involved in any two way currency transactions is laughable. There is now little to zero hope of Eve TQ getting its hardcore MMO credentials back. This game is now in no way competitive owing to CCP’s inability to moderate it with any honesty, transparency or anything other than 1/4 self interest.